Physics Legacy: Tribute to Marie Curie
4 March 2007Throughout the years physics has left considerable heritage that brought explanations for the mysteries of the universe. What we should remember, apart from the miraculous theories and innovations, are the names of those who wrote the history of physics, because they were the people who dared to elaborate theories and sustain them open-heartedly.
One of such people who made the difference in physics domain is Marie Curie, who is at present the only person who was awarded two Nobel prizes, one in physics and the other one in chemistry. Her marriage to the chemistry specialist Pierre Curie was also famous, given the fact that both Pierre and Marie brought a considerable amount of information in the physics domain. What Marie Curie is most known for is her contribution to radioactivity, a domain which, at the time being, was under-appreciated and lacked any basis. Also, together with her husband, Pierre Curie, she elaborated and included in the physics domain the new chemical substances polonium and radium.
But Marie Curie did not stop here and she wanted more than just being a physics theoretician. During the First World War, Marie contributed greatly to the medical-physics side of the war, by helping the wounded soldiers with treatment based on the radium substance. The “little Curies”, as the physics particles used for X-rays were called, turned out very helpful for the great amount of injured soldiers and, again, reinforced Marie Curie’s valuable contribution to physics.
Unfortunately, Marie Curie’s work turned against her own life, if we come to think about the fact that her death occurred precisely because of over-exposure to radium. She lived to see, and dreaded this fact, that her physics discoveries were used in the cosmetics field, without being completely safe. But, all in all, she was a physics lover and she dedicated her entire life to this scientific research in order to share her knowledge with the rest of the world.
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